Kituwah Mound (NC) (Eastern Cherokee)

Introduction

In
1995 Kituwah Mound was much better known as Ferguson Fields. It had been used
for many years as a place to grow corn, graze cattle, and was even used as an
air strip. The small rise in the center of the field was plowed over time and
again, rendering one of the most significant places to the Cherokee people
nearly indistinguishable from the fields around it. In 1996, at the urging of a
few, very dedicated activists like Tom Belt—a Cherokee man who recently returned
to live in North Carolina— the Eastern Band of the Cherokee decided to purchase
the 309 acre field in the interests of preserving the mound, an action that has
created a debate both inside and outside the Cherokee community, about how to
protect and honor the site.

History

Kituwah mound is nestled in the Smoky Mountains of Western
North Carolina, near a fork in the Tuckasegee river. All around the field rise
the tree-covered mountains, traditional home of many Cherokee people, “you feel
as though you’re contained within it, sort of cradled by the whole thing,” Brett
Riggs, Cherokee Historic Preservation officer said. The mound itself is now 170
feet in diameter and only 5 feet tall, only a small rise in the center of what
looks like a farm field. Once, though, it was a much more impressive size, the
foundation of a building which housed the sacred flame of the Cherokee that was
kept burning at all times by a specially appointed leader who lived there. This
flame was very much symbolic of the life of the Cherokee, and people from
villages all around Kituwah came to light ceremonial fires with it. Fire, in
fact, was so important to many Cherokee people that it became the word for
‘home.’

Now the mound is about nine miles from the Eastern Cherokee
reservation (population 12,000) but at one time, it was the center of the
earliest, and one of the largest Cherokee settlements.

Archeologists speculate that the Kituwah site has been
inhabited for nearly 10,000 years and that once there were as many as 200 people
living there. It was also a spiritual center of the larger Cherokee population,
once as large as 36,000 people, who lived over a range of 140,000 square miles
in what is now the Eastern United States. These people gathered in relatively
small settlements like Kituwah, but maintained active communication between the
communities.

In 1540, Cherokee people first encountered explorers from
DeSoto’s expedition, which initiated one of the most tragic chapters in their
history, marked by devastation by disease, constant fighting, and the eventual
ceding of land to European colonizers. In 1823, the Cherokee people were evicted
from the land that contains the Kituwah mound, and this sacred place was
auctioned away. This cession was a small part of one of the most massive
expulsions in United States history, of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw,
and Seminole people, from the entire southeastern part of the country.

In 1827, in an attempt to resist the advance of European
settlers, the Cherokee created a written constitution, formed a democratic
government, and even established a newspaper, all in an effort to be declared a
sovereign political body with full control over its own lands. However, neither
any of the southeastern states, nor the United States Supreme court would
recognize them as anything but tenants on government land. In 1831, the Cherokee
were more successful in the Supreme Court, and earned a ruling that supported
their sovereignty beyond state or federal law in the case Worcester v. Georgia.
The court’s decision was, famously, inconsequential, as President Jackson
refused to enforce the ruling. His preferred solution to the debate was the
Indian Removal Act, which was initiated only a year after he came to office.

Initially, the process of removal was supposedly a peaceful
and voluntary one, but as soon the Federal government encountered resistance, it
quickly shifted their approach. In 1833 the government drafted the Treaty of New
Echota ceding all of the Cherokee’s land east of the Mississippi, which was
signed by only a few people, completely outside the system of ratification the
Cherokee established six years earlier. Over 15,000 Cherokee signed a petition
in protest, but to no avail. Shortly thereafter, the United States Army forced
the migration of approximately 17,000 people to the Indian Territory, of which
about one fourth died en route.

This removal fractured the Cherokee community, which
dispersed as far away as Mexico. Most of the population, however, settled in
Oklahoma, where a many people still identify as Kituwah. The very few people who
escaped the expulsion remained in North Carolina, where the Eastern Cherokee
reservation, and Kituwah mound, now stand.

Sacred Significance

One of the most sacred aspects of the Kituwah site is its
proximity to the Tuckasegee river. Early Cherokee people settled there because
water has always been a very important part of the Cherokee worldview, “The
water is a living breathing thing. It has life, has spirit, and we honor him,”
Dan Taylor, a representative of the Cherokee Museum, said. He elaborated: “The
Cherokee were baptists before there were any Baptists,” in reference to a
ceremonial purification in which every child took part, shortly after birth. The
river’s ceremonial significance was also reserved for the end of life, when
people would gather there for funeral prayer, and where, according to some
accounts, the priest was able to tell whether the death was caused by
witchcraft. It is likely that the placement of Kituwah mound was determined by
the river, because where it stands the river bends and forks. This forking was
crucial for early Cherokee, who used one side of the river for bathing and
ceremony, and the other for drinking.

Kituwah mound itself is said to be the place where God came
to give laws to humans. It is also the mythical the birthplace of the Cherokee
people, a place from which smoke from an eternal fire emerged through a hollow
cedar trunk. Tom Belt says of Kituwah, “This is the place where the people we
call Cherokee began... They were directed by God to come here, and the very
first fire was given to the people here... this place wasn't just a town--this
was like the Vatican. This was the holiest of holies." The mound was primarily
used as a sacred hearth, where a fire was kept burning all the time inside a
structure built on top of it. People came from hundreds of miles, each year, to
get fire from the hearth and bring it back to their communities. Often these
people would also bring earth and ashes from their own hearths to add to the
mound.

For these reasons, Kituwah is understood as the “mother town”
and the place with which many Cherokee most closely identify, calling themselves
Ani-kituwah-gi (people of Kituwah). Today, some Cherokee people see the site as
a reminder of the unity of the Cherokee before their removal and dispersion.
Recently some have reinitiated some of the ceremonial significance of the place,
returning there to pray and notably, in 1998, to begin re-building the mound.
Now, on top of the mound is a small patch of red dirt, from a ceremony, enacted
by a group of Cherokee children under the guidance of Tom Belt, who reflected,
“You’re talking about kids who can’t speak Cherokee, who watch TV all the time.
All of a sudden they reach back in time and say that’s part of who we are. The
very first rebuilding of the mound, it was the children who did it. Our
ancestors are buried here. That’s what they needed to see. When we begin to do
these things again, who we are begins to mean something again.”

Recent Debate

In 1996, when the opportunity arose, the Eastern Cherokee
decided to buy back this land after nearly 165 years without it. Under the
leadership of Joyce Dugan, the Chief at the time, the tribe used profits from
its small-scale casino to purchase the 309 acre plot for 3.5 million dollars.
This was a great victory for Cherokee across North America, though it sparked a
debate in the community about what to do with the land. Because the land cost so
much, many people were frustrated by the prospect of keeping it there “just to
look at.” Much of the debate centered on trying to balance this perspective with
the idea that the sacred nature of the land needed to be preserved, as many,
like Marie Junaluska expressed: "I think we need to preserve Kituhwa because it
was the mother town. We're searching to find a way to preserve it without
digging it up.

To me that's a very sacred place. It's a very peaceful place.
If you ever go there, you can feel the peace. The spirit that was there a long
time ago is still there.” Still others believe that the land should absolutely
remain untouched, that the possibility of development is out of the question.

However the opinion which has kept the debate active for so
long, and which has attracted the most media attention, is that the site ought
to be used to promote economic advancement.

Specifically, many argued for developing the land as some
kind of tourist attraction. Proposals for Kituwah have included a train depot,
culture center, Indian resort, walking trail, tourism project, golf course, and
even a NASCAR track.

Councilman Larry Blythe is one man in favor of using the
space for non-traditional purposes, as he is spear-heading the idea of golf
course development. He and others feel that such construction could be designed
around the most sacred areas at Kituwah. Dan McCoy, chairman of the Tribal
Council, who negotiated the debate spoke in support of this idea, “there never
has been any question of the need to protect...and anyone who wants to develop
around them is going to have to work around them and prove to our satisfaction
that they will be protected.”

But, people concerned that any development of the site would
damage its spiritual and cultural significance were still dissatisfied. This
group asked Brett Riggs, Deputy Historic Preservation Officer and staff member
at the at the University of North Carolina, to see what an archeological
examination of the mound could add to case for its preservation. One of the
greatest motivators of the study, was the speculation that the mound was home to
ancient burial sites. Tipped off by a nearby gardener who saw some fractured
bones in a groundhog’s hole, the archeologists dug over one thousand, very small
test holes. After this first investigation, they found 15 burials, and Briggs
speculates that there could be many, perhaps even 1,000 more. This issue has
rallied many people who were initially pro-development to think about Kituwah
differently, as a visible and tangible connection to their cultural and
religious history.

Because many people, including Riggs, were concerned that
conventional archeological practices would be disruptive to the mound’s
spiritual significance, most of the work done on Kituwah mound has been, at
least partly, invisible. Riggs’ team employed the use of a gradiometer, a
machine that can measure differences in the magnetic plane of the field. Using
this instrument to carefully go over the ground at Kituwah, they hoped to map
the area by evidence of scorched earth, which would mark the existence of
hearths, hundreds of years old. The team’s project was very successful. The
study produced grainy, black and white images, which depict the locations of
many hearth sites, with one, very clear example at the center of the mound.
Around this hearth, the images also depicted rings which marked the
reconstructions of the ceremonial hut, which was rebuilt every 20 years. The
earliest of the apparent rings dates as far back, Riggs thinks, as the 15th
century. The team's imagery also uncovered burial sites in the area of the
mound, and Riggs asserts that with further study more, perhaps thousands more,
could be found.

As the tribe decides what to do with the land, this study
with continue, with the gradiometer as its primary instrument because of the
security it offers, "There will never be any focused archaeological excavation
[at Kituwha]. It has too much immediate cultural and religious importance for us
to even broach the issue," Riggs has said. The gradiometer’s images were
published in the tribe’s newspaper and became a rallying point for Cherokee
people interested in preservation from North Carolina to Oklahoma to Mexico.

Decisions

As of July 2004, although the precise fate of the land is
still uncertain, this archeological investigation has been tremendously
important in the process of identifying, specifically, the remains of the site’s
religious and cultural significance. For many, the electronic mapping of the
mound and the discovery of grave sites, in particular, made the decision not to
undertake a high-impact development quite easy.

Since the archeological findings, there has been a resurgence
in attention to the place as a cultural center. In 2000, for example, the
Eastern Cherokee sponsored another youth retreat, the “Cultural Enrichment
Program.” The outing was focused on Kituwah, and highlighted the sacred nature
of the place for many young people who had never been exposed to more
traditional ways of spiritual expression.

The process of re-examining Kituwah mound has been an example
of the power of education in the preservation of sacred sites. For, recognition
of historical significance has long been an important value for most Americans,
and the more cultural and academic communities can discover and publicize this
kind of significance, American Indian sacred sites will find another haven of
protection. Also, the inclusion of archeologists into the process of the
Cherokee’s movement toward preservation is quite significant. Since the passage
of NAGPRA in 1990, these two groups have experienced considerable tension
because of property debates, and the unwillingness of some museums and
collections to return some sacred objects. The fact, thus, that they are working
together at Kituwah, is decidedly promising, especially because the preservation
of the mound, many feel, can be extremely valuable to both parties.